The Institute for Space Studies was designated to be the main one. And for several years this work had been conducted; it was completed some time in mid '80s; a report, a fundamental report was produced, where, generally, all collected matters, related to the events in this or that corner of the country, all were put on shelves, systemized, materials were related to every (appropriate-P.S.) event, location of the event, time of the event, what eyewitnesses, what did they observe, what did they feel at the time, what effects and what shape the thing had-all this was systemized; they even made tabular shapes, shapes and silhouettes (outlines-P.S.) of UFOs that had appeared in the atmosphere.

In most cases, experts went to the most interesting sites. Performed appropriate measurements, conducted questioning of eyewitnesses, and conducted various researches of sorts, and so on. And as a result some conclusion was made for every event.

I remember, around seventy percent of the events were provided with real and objective explanations. What were they connected with? Tests of aviation technology, missile technology, launches of space objects, parts of spacecraft objects falling into the atmosphere, aircraft technology disasters, some cataclysms in nature connected with something being discarded and so on. That is, everywhere they found an explanation.

But in thirty percent of cases, it is as if half of an explanation was given, but not a single one, meaning that yes, something took place, but facts that certainly confirm what is, are not sufficient. And in some instances, simply due to lack of information and due to dearth of any material proof at the incident site, no conclusions were made.

The annual report was completed somewhere in mid '80s. The KGB itself, naturally, did not research these issues; we did not have such direction. There simply was collection, gathering; and periodically the materials, as they say, were dumped into the Institute of Space Studies or other departments, depending again on the contents of an event, as they say. That is what took place".

AE: "Who took the lead in the government to issue resolutions; was it Brezhnev himself; did it fascinate him, was he interested in it? Why all of a sudden in the mid '70s this resolution came about, and who took the lead?"

NAS: "I do not know about taking lead. After all, at the time we had a military-industrial commission, and in cat, many things were originated there. But who specifically at the military-industrial commission all of a sudden took the lead, I do not remember…Most likely it (the initiative-P.S.) could had been the military-industrial commission, or, let's assume, we had the rocket-space technology field; the Ministry of General Engineering Industry, it could have come from there. Or, for example, from the same Academy of Sciences. That is, where would the initiative come from? Well, the initiative came about because the media, as they say, began to play up with things, as such. And since it began to play up, our government and Party always reacted to such things. I cannot say, who took the lead with the release of the resolution. The topic was named, I recall, Setka AN (A sharp increase in UFO activity in l977/78 had forced the appropriate departments with the USSR Academy of Sciences to agree a research program for anomalous phenomena. The code name for this program was SETKA AN-P.S.), the name of this subject, the Setka AN program. And since then…"

AE: "Why Setka AN?"

NAS: "I do not know why it was exactly Setka AN. I cannot say. That did not interest us; what was interesting was why? Because…As a matter of principle, all these things, (unclear)… that take place in the atmosphere, and that assume such various forms, all this, generally, first of all are connected with, of course, power engineering, with electromagnetic fields, with massive radiation that surround us. This radiation…just the enumeration, as they say, God knows how much there is, starting with…(unclear)…was given a Noble Prize for discovering this relic radiation. These scientists had discovered first, launching a specialized satellite, and see how the Americans had developed that topic, and received a Noble Prize for it. And our program was terminated, did not get to be developed.

End of interview.

You don't have to be Einstein to see that Sham is still a little guarded all these years later. It is nonetheless interesting to note that he readily admits that a large percentage of things did remain unidentified and he did clarify what western researchers had speculated about for years, the fact that the Soviets used UFO stories to mask weapons testing. The reason for this is that they were breaking a number of international treaties at the time.

Russian NTV journalist Alexey Egorov and Philip Mantle

Space here does not allow a more in-depth look at the KGB UFO files but they are covered extensively in the book I co-authored with Paul Stonehill. It is: Mysterious Sky-Soviet UFO Phenomenon. Published by PublishAmerica this 408 page illustrated book is available via Amazon.

I would like to thank NTV in Moscow for allowing us permission to reproduce this interview and my colleague Paul Stonehill for its translation.

Philip Mantle is an international UFO researcher, author, lecturer and broadcaster. He can be contacted at: Philip Mantle, 49 East Leigh Drive, Tingley, Nr Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, WF3 1PF. Email: philip@mantle8353.fsworld.co.uk